melanoma – Oral Cancer News

Expert says Nivolumab Poised to Change Standard of Care in SCCHN

Source: www.onclive.com Author: Laura Panjwani Nivolumab (Opdivo) is a game-changing agent for the treatment of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN), according to Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD. “Recent findings have shown us that this agent is really the new standard-of-care option for all platinum-refractory patients with head and neck cancer,” says Ferris, vice chair for Clinical Operations, associate director for Translational Research, and co-leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. “This is regardless of whether patients are PD-L1–positive or negative or whether they are HPV-positive or negative.” The PD-L1 inhibitor received a priority review designation by the FDA in July 2016 based on the CheckMate-141 study, which demonstrated a median overall survival (OS) with nivolumab of 7.5 months compared with 5.1 months with investigator's choice of therapy (HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.51-0.96; P = .0101) in patients with recurrent or metastatic SCCHN. The objective response rate (ORR) was 13.3% with nivolumab and 5.8% for investigator's choice. The FDA is scheduled to make a decision on the application for the PD-1 inhibitor by November 11, 2016, as part of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. Ferris was the lead author on an analysis that further evaluated preliminary data from CheckMate-141, which was presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting. In an interview with OncLive, he discusses the findings of this study, potential biomarkers for nivolumab, and questions that remain regarding the use of the immunotherapy in SCCHN. OncLive: What [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-08-24T13:28:58-07:00August, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Drug Target in Rare, Lethal Glandular Cancer Discovered

Source: www.dddmag.comAuthor: Yale University Using a novel cell culture approach, Yale Cancer Center researchers have discovered critical vulnerabilities in adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a rare and lethal glandular cancer with a high recurrence rate and few treatment options. The findings, published April 15th in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, offer data that ACC and similar cancers could be treated with already available drugs. ACC most often occurs in the salivary glands but can originate in the breast, trachea, skin, or other sites. Survival rates at five years are close to 90percent but drop significantly after that with just 40percent surviving at 15 years after diagnosis. It is a slow-growing cancer that affects about 1,200 people each year, with few symptoms in early stages. Aside from surgery, there are few treatments for ACC, which until now has proven largely resistant to radiation therapy. It is this resistance that prompted Yale researchers to develop a novel cell culture technique to isolate and study ACC cancer stem cells, known to be the root of tumor growth, aggressiveness, and resistance to chemotherapy and radiation, said co-senior author Sergey Ivanov, research scientist in surgery (otolaryngology). “Within ACC cells, we found the especially aggressive cancer stem cells. As important, we found the Achilles heel of these cells, which is their addiction to NOTCH1, a signaling molecule that helps these cells to survive therapy and multiply,” Ivanov said. “Fortunately, cancer stem cells can be killed by blocking NOTCH1 production.” The similarities between the ACC stem cells and [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-04-21T10:12:16-07:00April, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Why groundbreaking new cancer drugs still don’t work for most patients

Source: www.news.doximity.comAuthor: Brady Dennis Immunotherapy, which aims to harness the body's immune system to fight off certain cancers, has received plenty of attention, praise and investment in recent years. Breakthrough treatments for melanoma and other cancers have shown startling results, giving some patients months and often years of life they almost certainly would not otherwise have had. Yet, for all their promise, immune therapies have not produced such dramatic results for the majority of patients. The same drug that causes metastatic melanoma to vanish in one patient might have no effect on another. At best, only one or two patients out of five will respond to immunotherapy treatments -- remarkable numbers compared to past standards, but still far lower than anyone would like. New research published Monday in the journal Nature explores the molecular mechanisms that prevent immunotherapy drugs from working in some patients, and researchers hope the findings will help make the treatments more effective over time. In short, the researchers studied why certain tumors were able to evade immune therapies designed to unleash the body's defenses to fight cancer. They noted that tumors with a high concentration of "T cells," a type of white blood cell essential to the human immune system, were more responsive to the treatments. Tumors with a low number of T cells inside what researchers call the "cancer microenvironment" were far less responsive to the new drugs. "The tumors are acting to protect themselves," said Weiping Zou, a senior author of the study and a professor of surgery, immunology and biology at the University of Michigan's [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-10-30T12:28:18-07:00October, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

SA Developed Melanoma Drug Now Seen Effective in Fighting Lung Cancer

Source: www.woai.comAuthor: News Radio 1200 WOAI Staff Keytruda, a cancer drug developed largely at San Antonio's START Center, has already proven to be effective in treating advanced melanoma to the point that it is the major part of former President Jimmy Carter's treatment. Now, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports Keytruda has been given 'fast track' approval by the FDA for use in treating lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Dr. Amita Patnaik, a researcher and oncologist at START who helped develop the drug, says the impact of Keytruda on lung cancer patients has been amazing. "Close to 40% of those patients will receive a response," she said. "And of those patients who receive a response, about 80% of those patients will have a long term response." The life saving potential of Keytruda in fighting non small cell lung tumors is obvious. An estimated 221,000 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer each year, and 158,000 die of the disease annually. Dr. Patnaik says Keytruda is becoming the most successful of what are known as 'targeted therapies,' drugs which trigger the body to take action to fight the cancer. She says both melanoma and lung cancer work essentially the same way to undermine the body's defenses. "The commonality between melanoma and lung cancer is there is a supressive effect of the cancer on the immune system." She says Keytruda essentially overrides that supressive effect, prompting the body to restart its natural immune defenses and fight the [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-10-06T11:11:27-07:00October, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

A New Treatment’s Tantalizing Promise Brings Heartbreaking Ups and Downs

Source: The New York Times Beth McDaniel’s oncologist, a bear of a man, hugged her and twirled her around. “Holy cow, Beth!” Dr. John J. Gohmann exclaimed. For the first time since a rare cancer appeared eight years before, her lymph nodes had shrunk to a normal size, her skin was no longer bright red and inflamed, and the itchiness that plagued her had subsided. Mrs. McDaniel, the 69-year-old wife of a retired corporate executive, had gambled on the ultimate in personalized medicine, an approach known as whole genome sequencing, and it seemed to be paying off. Scientists had compared the entire genetic sequences of the tumor cells invading her body with those in her healthy cells, searching for mutated tumor genes that could be thwarted by drugs approved for other cancers or even other diseases. That had led them to give her an expensive drug approved just a month earlier for melanoma patients. It had never been given to anyone with a blood cell cancer like hers. In theory, the drug should have killed her. Instead, it seemed to have halted or even reversed her cancer. But would it last? And what would it mean if it did not? In the end, Mrs. McDaniel’s journey to the edge of genetics research turned out to be a decidedly mixed experience. It was hard — much harder than anyone in her family had imagined — to get the sequencing and analysis done. It was breathtaking to see the results, which indicated [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-07-09T09:31:57-07:00July, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Which Cancers Are Increasing Among Older Adults?

Source: AARP Cancers of the mouth and throat related to oral sex, as well as thyroid, liver and skin cancers are on the rise among older adults, according to new stats released last week from the American Cancer Society. There was some good news, however. The death rate is down for the well-known major cancers. The society’s Cancer Statistics 2012 report found that overall, cancer deaths dropped by nearly two percent for both men and women from 2004 to 2008. That may sound paltry, but Len Lichtenfeld, M.D., the society’s deputy chief medical officer, says it is more significant than it seems: Many people avoided even hearing the words “you have cancer” because advances in cancer treatment caught problems early, while still in the pre-cancerous stage, he said. The report found that death rates were down for all four major cancers — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate. The biggest drop was for lung cancer, which is down almost 40 percent in the number of men dying from the disease, thanks to fewer Americans smoking. Deaths among women from breast cancer declined 34 percent, mainly because of increases in mammogram screening and a decrease in hormone use for menopause, the ACS report said. On the other hand, some cancers are increasing, particularly among older Americans. According to Medscape News , the ACS found that people 55 to 64 years of age had the highest increase in incidence rates for liver and HPV-related oral cancers; people 65 and older also had an increase in incidence rates [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-01-10T14:48:32-07:00January, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

New Study for Cancer Patients to Help Improve the Body’s Ability to Fight Illness

Source: Sign On San Diego A Santa Monica research center will test an experimental therapeutic filtering device being developed by Aethlon Medical on blood taken from cancer patients, the San Diego company said Wednesday. The study will target exosomes, bubbles of protein and RNA molecules excreted by cancerous cells that can block immune system cells from fighting the illness. By removing exosomes from circulating blood, Aethlon officials hope their device will improve the body's ability to fight cancer and the effectiveness of treatments such as chemotherapy. Blood taken from 25 patients with non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma, sarcoma, and head and neck cancer will be circulated through the Hemopurifier device. In clinical use, blood would be filltered directly from the patient and returned to the body in a similar way to kidney dialysis. However, in the newly announced pre-clinical trial blood will not be returned to patients, Aethlon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Joyce said. "If we validate that our Hemopurifier is efficient in capturing exosomes, its possible that we could transition towards a human treatment study to evaluate exosome clearance from the entire circulatory system," he said. The test will be conducted by the Sarcoma Oncology Center, a nonprofit independent research institute focused on cancer therapy development. "This clinical histological study is a critical validation step in Aethlon's Hemopurifier strategy for cancer," said Dr. Sant Chawla, the trial's chief investigator. "The concept of 'subtractive therapy', eliminating a major mechanism of tumor progression and resistance to drugs, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-08-25T09:51:41-07:00August, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

New Study for Head and Neck Melanomas

Source: MDNews.com ANN ARBOR, MI — A common technique for determining whether melanoma has spread can be used safely and effectively even in tumors from the head and neck area, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Sentinel lymph node biopsy involves injecting a special dye to identify the first node where cancer would likely spread. If that node is clean, patients can avoid further debilitating surgery to remove multiple lymph nodes. If that node shows cancer, patients know they need the more extensive surgery or further treatment with radiation, chemotherapy or a clinical trial. Patients with larger melanomas are routinely offered this procedure. But many surgeons believed that the complex anatomy combined with the critical nerves and blood vessels in the head and neck area made sentinel lymph node biopsy unsafe and inaccurate for melanomas in that region. In the current study, which appears online in Cancer, researchers looked at 353 head and neck melanoma patients who had received sentinel lymph node biopsy at U-M over a 10-year period. After reviewing patients’ records, the researchers found that the sentinel lymph node could be identified in all but one patient, and no patients sustained permanent nerve injuries during the procedure. About 20 percent of the patients had at least one sentinel node positive for cancer and were referred for a complete dissection to remove additional lymph nodes. Among the remaining 283 patients with negative sentinel nodes, 12 patients recurred in the region where the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-08-09T10:30:24-07:00August, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Convergence in Head and Neck Cancer

Source: Eurekalert.org Powerful new technologies that zoom in on the connections between human genes and diseases have illuminated the landscape of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that drive the development of certain types of malignancies such as melanoma or ovarian cancer. Now several major biomedical centers have collaborated to shine a light on head and neck squamous cell cancer. Their large-scale analysis has revealed a surprising new set of mutations involved in this understudied disease. In back-to-back papers published online July 28 in Science, researchers from the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have confirmed genetic abnormalities previously suspected in head and neck cancer, including defects in the tumor suppressor gene known as p53. But the two teams also found mutations in the NOTCH family of genes, suggesting their role as regulators of an important stage in cell development may be impaired. "This adds a new dimension to head and neck cancer biology that was not on anyone's radar screen before," said Levi A. Garraway, a senior associate member of the Broad Institute, an assistant professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, and a senior author of one of the Science papers. "Head and neck cancer is complex and there are many mutations, but we can infer there is a convergence on a cellular process for which we previously did not have genetic evidence. It shows that if you [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-07-28T13:36:56-07:00July, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Immunity Drugs Used to Fight Cancer

Source: The Wall Street Journal Scientists are scrambling to develop medications that fight cancer by spurring the body's immune system, a form of treatment that some cancer specialists believe may hold the key to keeping a patient permanently disease-free. The new efforts come in the wake of recent Food and Drug Administration approvals of Dendreon Corp.'s Provenge, an immunotherapy drug used to treat prostate cancer, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Yervoy, for melanoma. Other immunotherapy drugs are being developed for a number of other cancers, including lung, brain and kidney cancers. Unlike most traditional therapies that attack a cancer directly, immunotherapy uses the body's own internal defenses to ward off the disease, with the ultimate hope of building up a long-term resistance to the cancer. "If we are ever going to use the word 'cure', the immune system is going to have to come into play," says Stephen Hodi, director of the melanoma center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. One of the ways that cancer survives and ultimately spreads through the body is by exploiting a function in all cells that prevents the immune system from killing them. Researchers have found that cancer cells have multiple methods of avoiding detection and suppressing the immune system's response. "Why would cancer devote so much energy to avoid the immune system if the immune system didn't have the potential to reject the cancer?" says Robert Vonderheide from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. There are big hurdles to advancing the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-06-14T10:26:14-07:00June, 2011|Oral Cancer News|